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About the OpenWrt/LEDE project

OpenWrt ​is a highly extensible ​GNU/​Linux ​distribution for embedded devices ​(typically wireless routers). Unlike many other distributions for these routers, OpenWrt ​is built from the ground up to be a full-featured, easily modifiable operating system for your router. In practice, this means that you can have all the features you need with none of the bloat, powered by a Linux kernel ​that's more recent than most other distributions.

What is OpenWrt?

Instead of trying to create a single, static firmware, OpenWrt provides a fully writable filesystem with optional package management. This frees you from the restrictions of the application selection and configuration provided by the vendor and allows you to use packages to customize an embedded device to suit any application. For developers, OpenWrt provides a framework to build an application without having to create a complete firmware image and distribution around it. For users, this means the freedom of full customization, allowing the use of an embedded device in ways the vendor never envisioned.

A reboot of the OpenWrt community

In 2016, the LEDE project was founded as a spin-off of the OpenWrt project and shared many of the same goals. The project aimed at building an embedded Linux distribution that makes it easy for developers, system administrators or other Linux enthusiasts to build and customize software for embedded devices, especially wireless routers. The name LEDE stood for Linux Embedded Development Environment.

Members of the project included a significant share of the most active members of the OpenWrt community and intended to bring new life to Embedded Linux development by creating a community with a strong focus on transparency, collaboration and decentralisation.

LEDE’s stated goals were:

Build a great embedded Linux distribution with focus on stability and functionality.

Joint future

LEDE's fork and subsequent re-merge into OpenWrt did not alter the overall technical direction taken by the unified project. OpenWrt will continue to work on improving stability and release maintenance while aiming for frequent minor releases to address critical bugs and security issues like LEDE did with the 17.01 series and its multiple point releases until now.

Old pre-15.05 OpenWrt CC releases are not supported by the merged project anymore, leaving them without any future security or bug fixes. The OpenWrt CC 15.05 release series did receive a limited amount of security and bug fixes, but due to its lacking integration in the release automation, no further binary image releases were made.

The merged project uses the code base of the former LEDE project. OpenWrt specific patches not present in the LEDE repository but meeting LEDEs code quality requirements got integrated into the new tree while the source code has been moved to git.openwrt.org with a continuously synchronized mirror hosted at Github. The original OpenWrt codebase has been archived on Github for future reference.

Infrastructure formerly available under the lede-project.org domain has been mostly moved to corresponding openwrt.org subdomains and redirects were put in place when appropriate.

Name

The name OpenWrt stems from the beginning of the open wireless router movements, starting with the first White Russian releases for WRT54G routers, marking the start of future wireless router firmware development.

The name LEDE is an abbreviation for Linux Embedded Development Environment, a reference to its flexibility and embedded buildroot origins, making it a solid choice for embedded Linux applications far beyond the wireless router and network appliance realm.